Becoming a lawyer might not be as popular as it used to be.
The number of Law School Admission Tests administered this year dropped more than 16 percent, and the UF Levin College of Law received 10.4 percent fewer applications than last year.
This year, 129,925 LSATs were administered, as compared to 155,050 last year. The number has declined almost 25 percent since a record high of 171,514 tests were given two years ago.
UF Law’s decrease in applicants is just shy of the national average decrease of 14.4 percent, said Michelle Adorno, assistant dean of admissions.
“UF is in line with what is happening nationally,” she wrote in an email.
In a good legal market, she said, about two-thirds of UF Law students have job offers by the time they graduate. In the current market, that number is closer to 50 percent.
Although the college has no data to precisely explain the reason for the decline, Adorno attributed the trend to “potential applicants becoming more educated consumers.”
Articles about increasing competition in the legal market, recently featured in newspapers such as The New York Times, have concerned potential applicants in recent years, she said.
Second-year UF Law student Ian Parry, 23, said he agrees the insecurity of the job market contributes to the decline.
“Now, with the bleak outlook as a lawyer post-graduation,” he said, “undergrad students do not have the same incentive to attend law school.”
The expense of law school is another deterrent, he said.
Parry, who plans to graduate in May 2013, said he doesn’t have a post-graduation job offer yet.
He thinks he made the right choice going to law school directly after completing his bachelor’s degree at Furman University, he said, and believes the UF college of law has given him the necessary tools to succeed.
“Nevertheless,” Parry said, “the declining job market is not something I enjoy reading about.”
